Dr. Lemieux–do you have any suggestions where? My money will be going to Planned Parenthood, but I’m writing a piece for the Chronicle this week and I’d like to include some Komen alternatives for people who don’t want to give to Planned Parenthood. I’d also like to smack them upside the head, but we can’t have everything.

Warren Terra

I’m not Dr. Lemieux, obviously.

Still, some suggestions for organizations you might look into and consider for your article, with the caveat that I’m not terribly well informed on this stuff:
(You’ve obviously mentioned directly donating to pay for the breast cancer-related services Planned Parenthood provides that Komen is defunding)
The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation
The American Cancer Society

You might also look at charitynavigator.org, which attempts to rate charities based, for example, on the proportion of funds raised that get spent on fundraising and administration. I don’t know much about them – most obviously, whether they’re really trustworthy – but the numbers they collect seem useful.

Abby Spice

Thanks!

DrDick

Charity Navigator is reputed to be very trustworthy (I have a friend who is a charity fundraiser).

Think local. Local support groups, local clinics and treatment centers, local Gilda’s Club chapters– the places where people in your community go to get help will use your money better- and will use more of your money on things people need, instead of just overhead and mailings. $100 bucks to a local support group goes a long way.

howard

I don’t know anything about komen and I don’t have time to track it down now, but something this misguided generally doesn’t happen unless the board is pushing it. One way we’ll know is if anyone resigns from the board in protest.

Abby Spice

Their new VP of public policy is a rabidly anti-choicer who previously ran for office on a platform that including ELIMINATING GRANTS TO PLANNED PARENTHOOD. More at Echidne, Jezebel, Boing Boing, Balloon Juice.

Also, here’s their June, 2011 statement on why they supported Planned Parenthood. No longer on their website, of course.

My favorite part of the statement:

As long as there is a need for health care for vulnerable populations, Komen Affiliates will continue to fund the facilities that meet that need.

I guess the vulnerable populations are all taken care of! Woot!

rea

They made a right wingnut politician their VP of Operations . . .

Halloween Jack

Also, Nancy Brinker, the founder of the Komen Foundation (Susan Komen was her sister), has had several political appointments, all by Republicans.

They’re the corporate breast cancer charity of choice, so you know they were already full of it. The best thing to do would probably give directly to people who have cancer, as any research money that did any good would just end up funding some pharmaceutical company’s ultra-expensive treatment.

Warren Terra

Your perspective on what is achieve by funding research – i.e. that it uselessly generates massive pharmaceutical profits – is just not so. Moreover, your position just isn’t logical: how you think funding the procurement of what you perceive to be exploitatively priced treatments is less of a sop to those gouging our healthcare system than funding researchers working long hours often with poor career prospects for a quarter the pay that someone with half their dedication and education could make in the private sector, I’ve no idea.

Steve LaBonne

Speaking as one trained in and formerly practicing life-science research, disease-of-the-month targeted research is generally a very poor way to allocate research funds.

Warren Terra

I’d certainly agree with that, and you’ll note that above I nominated Damon-Ronyon and the ACS, which aren’t disease-of-the-month outfits.

But the general notion to which I was responding, that money spent on research will just mean the invention of new ways for pharma to gouge profits is highly skewed.

Colin Day

Interesting, but it’s not as though Susan G. Komen spends that much on research.

wengler

I don’t hate medical research science. I am just skeptical at the charities that collect money for it. A large amount of it is publicly funded and then magically tumbles into the pockets of private interests.

You misread my comment.

LosGatosCA

Just shows, again, there is no limit, no sense of decency, that keeps these conservatives from their nihilism in the pursuit of their ideology. There are no pawns too small to sacrifice as collateral damage in their self-justified missions from the Republican gods and their personal careerist objectives. For $600K, they have trashed their brand outside of the anti-abortion charity constituency.

Maybe their donor base has been good with these types of values all along, they just hid it well in order to keep the folks with no agenda in the dark about their real objectives. If that has been the case, then I’m glad they have come out openly so that we all know the score and can act accordingly.

c u n d gulag

I’ve never heard of The Komen Foundation, but I’m very disappointed in their decision.

Since The House, as someone (NY State Appeals Judge Solomon Wachler?) once said of a prosecutor, “could indict a ham sandwich,” is this the latest ploy by the right to limit donations to organizations they don’t agree with?

Because all they’d have to do then is search for the organizations that donate to causes they don’t like, and find one that won’t give money to organizations under indictment, and bleed them to death financially?

Or, is this, as @rea said above, based in the influence of some Dominionist Board member, who swayed the rest of the members?

And what’s a better alternative to Planned Parenthood?
Unplanned Parenthood? “Whoops, I’m going to be a PARENT?!?!”

I see that “Save the Ta-tas” is it’s own foundation – or, are they tied in with the Komen Foundation in some way?

joshua buhs

Save the Ta-Tas is its own entity,

c u n d gulag

With emphasis on the latter syllables – EnTITY?

TT

I’ve got less than no time for Komen. A few years ago a woman I know, who is of modest means and who has overcome a lot of adversity in her life, raised over $500 from friends and family to participate in Race for the Cure. (These are people who don’t have a lot to give to charity.) You would think her efforts would garner some kind of appreciation, but the bastards at Komen wouldn’t let her run unless she brought in at least $1,000. She quite understandably told them to go F themselves.

Ugh. Just this morning I was using the office microwave, where I saw a pink ribbon-adorned “pennies for the cure” donation box. Since I hate to have change rattling around in my pocket I have a jar full of pennies on my desk (I separate out the other actually useful coins) that I very nearly brought over on a “why not?” basis. It’s probably less than $3, but I’m glad I hadn’t done it before reading this.

Of course, if I were to say print out the Feministing post and put it over there instead I’d be the one “making it political.”

Abby Spice

There are always bake sales and shit at school, and things that I see at the mall and find adorable, and my new plan is to donate any money I would spend on a cookie* or an unnecessary 94th water bottle to Planned Parenthood. Give that change somewhere it will count. The cheapest condom a regular person can buy is $.42. I’m guessing it’s about half that for them, buying in vast quantities. Your $3 just bought 12 condoms. That’s tangible benefits right there.

*This will also be good for my waistline.

Katya

To add to the outrage: In 2010, 14.5 percent of PP’s services involved cancer screening and prevention, including 747,607 breast exams. Komen apparently just told 747,607 women that it prefers that they not get screened for breast cancer. We already donate to PP, but we might have to up our contribution this year.

i wonder what chris king bicycle components are going to do now. they sell the galaxy’s most expensive bike components and promote a line of pink stuff with donations to komen. let’s hope they give directly to planned parenthood now.